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Water Hyacinth

VoodooJackal

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Has anyone had any experience using water hyacinth (Eichornia crassipes) in an aquarium setup. Are they newt safe?
 

FrogEyes

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This is a plant commonly associated with sirens...

Your issue isn't really salamander safety, but plant safety. This is a tropical floating plant which gets blasted by the sun. You need strong plant lights for it to survive indoors.
 

Chinadog

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I've been growing these indoors for nearly 4 years now in all my aquatic/semi aquatic tanks.
They do like plenty of light but mine have been fine with a single growlux tube and still grow at temps down to 60F. The only thing they don't do is flower but they reproduce with runners so quickly i end up giving them away!
Once they get established they make a nice floating mat for newts to haul out on and most of them sleep in the root system just below the surface.
 

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Chinadog

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After having these growing permanently indoors for nearly 5 years i swapped my lighting to a modern LED units, the rest of the plants in the tanks have thrived but the water hyacinths have really suffered. The new growth is stunted and leaves are turning brown. Strangely, the water lettuce is doing better than ever so i don't know why the hyacinths hate the LED lighting so much?
 

Bette

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I wanted to bump this thread because I am looking for an update on how China dog's water hyacinths are doing. Are they still alive under the led lights? If so, how many watts are the led lights you are using?
I have some salvinia, water lettace, and water hyacinths coming in the mail next week, and i am really hoping that I can keep them alive!
 

Chinadog

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The Hyacinths slowly died off, they just didn't like the led lights. I suspect it was the radiant heat from the old fluorescent bulbs that they couldn't do without, also, I have cooling fans running almost permanently in the summer, so maybe they were chilled by those.
Water lettuce, Amazon frogbit and Duckweed are all doing well enough though, so at least I have some floating plants in there.
Sorry for the slow reply, I've been away for a few days. :)
 

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Bette

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The Hyacinths slowly died off, they just didn't like the led lights. I suspect it was the radiant heat from the old fluorescent bulbs that they couldn't do without, also, I have cooling fans running almost permanently in the summer, so maybe they were chilled by those.
Water lettuce, Amazon frogbit and Duckweed are all doing well enough though, so at least I have some floating plants in there.
Sorry for the slow reply, I've been away for a few days. :)

Thanks so much for the update! I'll stick to the fluorescent bulbs for them.
 

willowcat

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I've been growing these indoors for nearly 4 years now in all my aquatic/semi aquatic tanks.
They do like plenty of light but mine have been fine with a single growlux tube and still grow at temps down to 60F. The only thing they don't do is flower but they reproduce with runners so quickly i end up giving them away!
Once they get established they make a nice floating mat for newts to haul out on and most of them sleep in the root system just below the surface.

Just a thought about the Growlux tube or other tubes you may be using. Is there a chance that this particular plant likes light in a different spectrum? I grow phytoplankton for my daphnia. The research that I found states that the red and blue light spectrum is the best for aquatic plant life. That is around 5000 Kelvin. I had a bunch of aquarium lights that I bought from a shop going out of business. They stated that the lights were 'great' for growing plants because the light says Full Daylight. These are rated at 8000K. I looked at a Growlux bulb and there is no information on the box describing the Kelvin measurement. So I called Sylvania and asked customer service what the rating was. She couldn't tell me, but said she would email me a chart with all their product ratings. The information that she sent me tells me all the Kelvin ratings except for the Grolux tube. So I turned on the different lights that I owned, including the new Grolux bulb and looked at the bulbs, noticing that there is quite a difference in the hues that the bulbs put off. I also noticed on the bulbs that they say replace yearly. I wonder if they inform us to replace the bulb because possibly the bulb looses something??? So I wonder if your bulbs have lost something that this particular plant needs or maybe this plant doesn't like a Full Daylight bulb, "if that is what you are using". I know that outdoor plants and trees differ in the amount of light they can tolerate.
 

Chinadog

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They were happy enough for five years with all kinds of fluorescent bulbs, It was the LED fixture that they couldn't live with. I guess I used the term Growlux as a generic term for aquatic plant bulbs, but I do know what you mean about the different colour glow from similar spec bulbs.
As I understand it, the spectrum gradually deteriorates with age in these types of bulb and the manufacturer can only guarantee the output will be within the stated spec for a certain amount of hours. This is especially noticeable with bulbs for UV sterilisers, they will still emit visible light for years, but they stop killing algae after about eight months.
I've also come across seemingly incurable algae problems in freshwater tanks where the nitrate and phosphate levels are where they should be, the eventual problems turned out to be old light tubes, the algae completely burnt itself out and vanished on both occasions after new light tubes were fitted.
 

Bette

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Its all very interesting. Well, so far I've been using two extra aquarium hood lights that are supposed to house full spectrum fluorescent tubes in each. The overall light they emit has a warm purple hue. The plants seem to love it so far! They look better than when they arrived, so that's good.
 
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